prizes for the living
by the Chronic Meltdown
Summary: Post P4. When Rise's plane crashes and Yukiko disappears, it becomes surprisingly clear to Seta Souji that he's been missing a piece of the puzzle all along. Except that he still doesn't know where to find it, and time's running out. SoujiNaoto, YukiChie.


prizes for the living

_History tends to repeat itself, but nothing ever happens the same way twice._

in the beginning- prologue

**Chie**

"_She said I look good in red…"_

The words rang sharply in her ears, were printed across her eyes, burned into her brain. They caused anxiety to rise within her, making her hands shake. She dropped the papers she had been holding and abruptly straightened up in her seat, catching the attention of several passersby.

"_I hated my name…Yukiko…'snow'…"_

She had unexpectedly broken into a cold sweat, and the paleness of her skin had attracted the unwanted attention of her fellow officers.

"Satonaka-san…? Are you all right…?"

She smiled somewhat unsteadily before sliding back from her desk and throwing up into the waste bin beside her.

**Yosuke**

Music blasted from his headphones, shielding him from the outside world.

He was locked inside a storage closet, sitting on a box full of Risette's new promotional posters. After Souji had left, they'd never really managed to keep in touch  
(_well, there had been a few letters here and there, but that had somehow been too depressing, so they'd eventually stopped and_)  
but he guessed that she was doing well, if the ads for her new movie were any indication. She had become increasingly popular and an international idol, and the last he'd heard of her, she'd been filming something in America.

Meanwhile, he was still working in Junes, still living in Inaba, and the only people he'd see from the original group every once in a while were Teddie, who still mooched off him, Kanji, though he wasn't a very frequent visitor (not that any of them really were, these days), and Yukiko. Though, he hadn't really seen Yukiko more than twice, and those occasions had always been coincidental, which was funny, considering the fact that they lived in such a small town.

She'd grown even more beautiful during the last three years.

The sadness in her eyes, which had been completely eradicated by Souji's presence, had returned.

She hadn't heard from him either, and it had been over eight months since she'd received a letter. She hadn't really kept in touch with Rise, either, and, amazingly, hadn't talked to Chie in weeks. When he'd asked why, she had only smiled sadly.

"_Why haven't any of us kept in touch, Yosuke-kun?"_

He hadn't known how to answer her.

He hadn't known how to say how unfair he found it, how unbearably stupid it all was. How he hated being an adult  
_(an almost adult, because, really, he was only twenty, and what the hell was he thinking?)  
_and how he hated that they had all had to grow up, and how he hated the fact that growing up meant making sacrifices, even if those sacrifices were the hearts of other people.

Because, really, if he'd lost his friends, he'd really lost everything.

**Rise**

She sighed into the palm of her hand for the umpteenth time.

Her agent shot her an annoyed glare from the corner of his eye before re-burying himself in his crappy magazine. Honestly. The models weren't even good-looking.

She sighed again and looked out the side window. She hated airplanes, and detested the way they made her feel uneasy. The feeling reminded her of back then, back when she'd been kidnapped, and the issue with her shadow, and just…the whole Persona fiasco.

She hated the sensation of having no control.

Her fingers began tapping against her armrest, drawing her agent's irritated gaze back toward her. She rolled her eyes.

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom." She stated flatly, and, after unbuckling her belt, walked past him.

"I don't need unnecessary explanations, Risette."

She pointedly ignored him and walked up to the bathroom. Pushing the door open, she stepped inside and closed it behind her. She locked it and turned to face herself in the mirror.

She was still exactly the same, except maybe a little more mature, but still. The giddiness from back then was still there, within her eyes, lurking beneath the surface. She leaned forward until her forehead touched the glass, and then clenched her eyes shut.

She was so tired.

She really couldn't wait to get home.

**Kanji**

Things were so strange, then. But so much more normal than now.

"Tatsumi Textiles. What do you want?" He gripped the phone in his right hand while handing the man in front of him his change. "Thank you and have a good day."

The man nodded at him before drawing his things up in his arms and walking away. The door tinkled shut.

"…"

Kanji frowned. "Hello? How can I help you?"

Someone drew in a shuddering breath on the other side. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

"Can I help you?" He barked harshly, "Or are you just going to waste my time?"

"_K…an…ji…"_

The voice on the phone sounded familiar, despite the abrupt and overbearing static. Panicked, and familiar.

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand you." He squinted in concentration, digging his ear against the phone in sudden agitation. "There's stati-"

A click, and then the dial tone.

**Teddie**

Something was amiss in the shadow world.

It wasn't just the fact that there weren't any shadows around at all, but the fact that there wasn't any fog, and that the air wasn't even misty on the other side. A strange sensation was forming in his chest, fluttery and unsettling, leaving him nauseous and disoriented. His eyes were watery, but he wasn't sad, and there was nothing in the air to irritate them.

The shadow world was empty, devoid of anything.

A blank space.

He was standing on nothing, and the sudden fear that he would fall and fade away had overwhelmed him.

_Can shadows ever truly disappear…?_

**Naoto**

She sat on the floor, pouring over a small stack of papers.

The TV was on, emitting noise in the background, but her attention was on the documents. They described the findings on the body of a six year old boy named Kurenai Ichijo. He had been hit on the back of the head by a blunt object. There had been traces of blood and semen on his clothes. Skin particles had been recovered from underneath his fingernails. His body had been stuffed inside a wall.

She was trembling violently.

Shoving the papers  
_(and the pictures, God, the pictures)_  
away, she leaned forward, pressing her knuckles tightly against her eyes. Her heart was heavy, drenched in rage, and fear, and hatred.

"I feel sick…" She breathed out, and there was a strange taste in her mouth, and for a second, it occurred to her that it was the taste of ashes.

It reminded her of the way she had felt while facing her shadow. It reminded her of Seta Souji, and Hanamura Yosuke, and Satonaka Chie, and Amagi Yukiko.

It reminded her of Tatsumi Kanji, and the bear, Teddie.

Of Kujikawa Rise.

Of generally better times.

She rose from her seat and used the wall to support herself as she stumbled across her apartment. She pushed past the door to her bathroom and opened the faucets of her sink before reaching down and splashing water across her face. Breathing in deeply, she closed the faucets and dried her face.

And then she looked at herself in the mirror.

She looked the same as before, dark hair unruly without a hat to keep it hidden. It was only slightly longer, now. She needed a haircut.

There were dark circles underneath her eyes. She almost looked the way she felt. Dark, desperate, and tired. Full of premature cynicism.

She missed them all dearly.

The phone rang, high pitched and startling her out of her skin. She slipped out of the bathroom, eyes wide, and scrambled for the phone.

"Hello?" She asked breathlessly, anxious for a reason she did not yet know.

"_Shirogane Naoto?" _

It was a woman's voice. Someone she had never met.

"Yes…?"

"_Please change the channel on your TV to the nearest newscast."_

She frowned. "What?"

"_It is of vital importance to you."_

"Who is this?" She asked, voice thick with trepidation. "What is this about?"

There was a pause. And then-

"_The time has come."_

And before she could ask what the woman was talking about, the person had hung up.

She pressed the red end button on her phone and placed it back down on the counter. Almost automatically, as though she'd been programmed to do it at some point in her life, she walked over to the end table beside her sofa and picked up the remote.

She switched the channel to the nearest newscast.

The screen depicted the scattered parts of an airplane strewn across the coast of Japan. There was smoke drifting out into the ocean.

A reporter was on the beach. People were being loaded onto several ambulances.

"…_several casualties on this fateful flight. The rising death toll is now up to twenty five persons, with over seven heavily injured and in critical condition."_

This was of vital importance to her?

"…_these is the popular idol Risette, originally from the small town of Inaba."_

And for the briefest of moments, she was sure she had misheard that whole sentence. After all, Rise was in America. She'd been filming.

And then a picture in the screen, of Kujikawa Rise, smiling radiantly, warmly at a camera.

"…_returning after having filmed her latest upcoming movie, 'Dreams of…'"_

And then the terror was pressing down on her from all sides, piercing her lungs as though they were thin, rubber balloons in need to be deflated.

_Who was that woman? How much does she know about me? Why did the plane go down?_

_Is Rise still alive?_

_Is she going to make it?_

**Souji**

He'd been lying in bed the whole day, so when the phone rang, he'd been more or less grateful for something to do.

His throat was still sore, but he was feeling better, and anyway, when he answered, he was taken aback by who it was that was calling him. He completely forgot about how terrible he'd felt the whole day.

"Souji-kun? Souji-kun, it's Chie. Do you remember me?"

She sounded sick to her stomach. He answered that, yes, it was him, and that yes, _Chie,_ _of course I remember you. _They had all been best friends, once. Who would have been able to forget?

"Ahaha…" She swallowed, and when she spoke again, her voice was strange and thin, and unbelievably strained. "Souji-kun…Souji-kun…"

As though she were about to start crying.

"Yukiko's missing."

**A/N:**

Hopefully, I've gotten your attention. But, just so you know, this will mostly focus on plot. It will not center on two specific characters, but on the concept of friendship, and how far one would truly go to save them.

As for pairings...there _will_ be romance (but I am a master of the subtle details, so you might have to squint in certain places to see it)...but most of them are entirely negotiable. So if you'd like to see something, let me know in your review. Except- I will not negotiate YukikoChie. This is what the story was initially based on, so...eh. But really, if you don't like the pairings, the scenes will be so minor that you can ignore them and just follow the story. I tend to do a lot of 'read between the lines' stuff, so none of them will be blatant. You can just claim ignorance, and anyway, it's intriguing enough that you'll probably want to know what happens, and what's going on.

Later. PM me if you want to know anything. Or say so in your review, and I'll answer you.


End file.
